


Ohana

by callunavulgari



Series: Ohana [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Always Female Derek Hale, Derek is a Good Parent, Disney References, F/M, Family, Reunion Sex, Reunions, Revelations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-04
Updated: 2015-03-04
Packaged: 2018-03-16 07:13:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3479126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/callunavulgari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The girl is wearing an old Dora the Explorer t-shirt and has huge chunks of dark hair spilling out of a half-assed braid. She’s wearing itty bitty purple chucks and regarding him with a look of complete surprise. For a horrifying moment, Stiles thinks that she’s about to start crying, and he’s going to end up with some angry mom or dad up on his shit for knocking their daughter over when <i>clearly</i>, he is the victim in this scenario. </p><p>Instead, the little girl opens her mouth, points to the hot pockets, and says, “You shouldn’t eat those. Mommy says they’re bad for you.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ohana

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote nobody gets left behind as a one-off idea, but there were so many demands for a sequel that I couldn't ignore the idea. 7k later, here we are. Also, I highly recommend the [Lilo and Stitch soundtrack](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mHtizddaUQ&index=1&list=PLA8VHLKYzqTvCcIKhsjGS41nG1zBpRZPy) for accompaniment. 
> 
> If you read the first fic (which you really should, it's only like 800 words) you already know that there's past dubious consent because of nogitsune-related bullshit. That _is_ mentioned in this fic a couple times, so be warned.

Stiles is only at the grocery store for toothpaste. That’s it. Just the toothpaste. In and out, that’s what he told himself.  
  
Unfortunately, somewhere between the front door and here, _just toothpaste_ has turned into onion bagels, hot pockets, a canister of aerosol, a box of face wipes, and frozen pierogies.  
  
These things happen. You go in with your mind set on one thing, and then as you’re making your way to whatever section the item of choice happens to be in, you start noticing other things that you’d forgotten you needed. Well, no. Stiles didn’t _really_ need the pierogies or the hot pockets. Those were impulse buys. But everything else? Yeah, those were all on the grocery list that probably ended up under his couch a week back.  
  
He’s finally reached his destination, juggling an armful of products — he hadn’t had the foresight to grab a cart, because hello, _just toothpaste_   — as he contemplates the many varied types of crest. Back in middle school, his father had had a flirtation with colgate for about two months, but other than that? Crest. It was what his mother had used, so it was what he used. End of story.  
  
He’s just decided on the new citrus crap when it happens.  
  
Holding his loot pressed close to his chest with one arm, he’s leaning forward to grab the box when a child comes barreling around the corner. He barely sees her. One second the only other person in the aisle is little old Miss Milkovich from three blocks over and then, bam. Stiles is getting taken out by a tiny gap toothed blur.  
  
Everything in his arms goes crashing to the ground with him. It’s a spectacular disaster. The pierogies end up flying into several bottles of peroxide, which automatically go tumbling off of their shelves. The hot pockets collide with a box of q-tips and the aerosol can goes rolling beneath a nearby power jack carrying an enormous pallet of tampons.  
  
The child blinks at him.  
  
Stiles blinks back.  
  
“Hi,” he says, stupidly.  
  
The girl is wearing an old Dora the Explorer t-shirt and has huge chunks of her dark hair spilling out of a half-assed braid. She’s wearing itty bitty purple chucks and regarding him with a look of complete surprise. For a horrifying moment, Stiles thinks that she’s about to start crying, and he’s going to end up with some angry mom or dad up on his shit for knocking their daughter over when _clearly_ , he is the victim in this scenario. Instead, the little girl opens her mouth, points to the hot pockets, and says, “You shouldn’t eat those. Mommy says they’re bad for you.”  
  
Stiles stares at her. The girl stares back, her big brown eyes wide and earnest. He’s being chastised by a toddler. What has his life come to.  
  
“Yeah,” he finally says, slowly. “They probably are. Fortunately for me, I have a ton of opportunities to run off the calories.”  
  
The little girl wrinkles her nose. “What’s calories?”  
  
Stiles opens his mouth. He closes it. Solemnly, he says, “Bad things.”  
  
“Hm,” the little girl says. “Okay.”  
  
Groaning, Stiles pushes himself to his feet. He looks down at the girl, ready to offer her a hand up, but to his bewilderment, she’s on her belly by the power jack, stretching to get something out from beneath it. She makes a face at him as she wriggles around on the floor, straining until she lets out a little noise of triumph. She wiggles back again, sits up, and with a grin, offers him the can of aerosol.  
  
Stiles accepts it with a smile of his own.  
  
“You smell weird,” she says to him as he’s stooping to straighten up the bottles of peroxide.  
  
He shoots her an offended look. “Hey, I showered two hours ago.”  
  
The little girl snorts and rolls her eyes. It’s an adorable sound, like a kitten sneezing. Stiles feels like his heart is growing three sizes just looking at this kid. “You don’t smell _dirty_ ,” she insists. “Just weird.”  
  
“Well,” he returns. “As long as I don’t smell dirty, that’s okay.”  
  
For two very long minutes, she quietly helps him straighten the aisle back up. She’s a very serious child, he thinks. Not many kids would be this content just helping someone clean up their own messes. Most kids would have already gone tearing off down the aisle, forgetting the man they trampled. Stiles knows that’s what he would have done if he were in her position.  
  
When the last of the q-tips are in place, the little girl straightens up and stares at him, a contemplative look on her face. Stiles wonders how old she is. She’s definitely tiny. Maybe three? But then again, in his experience, most three year olds aren’t quite so articulate.  
  
“So.” He clears his throat when the creepy staring continues. “Where are your parents?”  
  
Immediately, a little scowl darkens the little girl’s features. “Mommy was buying peanut butter, so I ran away.”  
  
“What’s wrong with peanut butter?”  
  
The girl looks at him like he’s an idiot. “It’s gross.”  
  
“What kind of kid doesn’t like peanut butter and jelly?” he asks, incredulous. He would have lived on peanut butter and jelly when he was little if his mom have let him.  
  
“I like jelly,” the girl shrugs. “But it’s better with lucky charms.”  
  
And that… actually sounds like something he may have eaten at some point in his life. “What kind of jelly?”  
  
“Blackberry!”  
  
He wrinkles his nose. “Oh gross, those have seeds. Grape is better.”  
  
“Grape is gross too.”  
  
“Oh, c’mon! What about strawberry jam?”  
  
She gives him a look full of judgement and says, in a tone of deep loathing, “Strawberry is the devil’s fruit.”  
  
“Oh god,” Stiles says as a woman comes careening around the corner, face red and hair askew.  
  
Suddenly, Stiles is back in high school again. The reaction is intense and visceral, tearing deep into his gut. For a moment, he could swear that he actually smells the chlorine.  
  
Because the woman kneeling in front of Stiles’ little friend is Derek Hale.  
  
Derek Hale, who Stiles hasn’t seen since he was seventeen. Derek Hale, who left Beacon Hills two months after the nogitsune disaster and was never seen or heard from again. Derek Hale, who has featured heavily in Stiles’ dreams once a week since he was sixteen years old.  
  
It’s only been four years, but she looks… softer now.  
  
Stiles remembers her as a scowly, leather-clad wild woman with an unhealthy predilection for slamming him into walls. Now, her dark hair is a gentle halo around her face, chopped to just under her chin. Her face is more or less the same, but there’s a healthy flush to her cheeks that wasn’t there the last time he saw her. She’s wearing _sweat pants_ and an oversized Metallica t-shirt, jesus.  
  
She looks good. More touchable. Less of a marble statue that could come to life and crush you in a moment’s notice and more—  
  
More like a mom.  
  
Because oh my god, Derek Hale is a _mother_.  
  
“Oh my god,” he says again, eyes wide as he stares at Derek fussing over her daughter. The little girl is crinkling her nose up at Derek, saying something about peanut butter, but Stiles can’t focus on that.  
  
Mom.  
  
Derek Hale.  
  
What.  
  
“You scared me, Dee,” Derek’s saying, hands framing her daughter’s shoulders. Her eyes are wet, like she’s about to cry. It makes a part of Stiles ache that he hadn’t realized he was missing.  
  
“It’s okay, mommy,” Dee says with a bright grin. “The smelly man took care of me.”  
  
“Smelly!” Stiles’ protests, forgetting for a moment why drawing attention to himself just now is a bad idea. Oh god, Derek’s going to murder him for real this time. Stiles _knocked over her daughter_.  
  
“Smelly man?” Derek mutters, nostrils flaring. She blinks and turns, eyes catching on Stiles and holding there.  
  
Time doesn’t really stop. It only feels that way.  
  
In the span of seconds, Derek’s eyes widen. Her face pales. Then, just as quickly, they flush bright with color. Something raw flashes across her expression. Stiles watches her throat work, and then all hints of emotion are wiped clear of her face, leaving her just as he remembers her.  
  
Stiles swallows.  
  
“Hey, Derek,” he says, and hates himself a little bit for how soft and wounded he sounds when he says her name.  
  
This was supposed to be over. This was supposed to be done with. Derek Hale was just the ghost of a good dream every month or so. Stiles was over her, okay? He’d dated Malia for a year and a half. He’d had a string of Jungle-related one night stands over the span of several months and dated sporadically through his freshmen year of college. He was _done_ with Derek Hale.  
  
“Stiles,” she replies, nodding.  
  
Dee, forgotten in the tidal wave of emotion that just transpired, laughs. “What kind of a name is Stiles?”  
  
“A very good one,” he assures her, only half paying attention to the tiny human being at Derek’s side.  
  
Derek climbs to her feet in an effortless move that reminds him of all the times he’d watched her fighting for her life. All that power and grace. She was strong and beautiful, and she’d _protected_ him time and time again. Back when Scott was too busy with Allison to realize his best friend was in danger. She’d protected him, and slept on his floor for three weeks while Stiles’ dad orchestrated a manhunt for her just downstairs. Stiles’ crush was anything but unwarranted.  
  
Then she’d left without a word.  
  
Stiles clears his throat, drumming his fingers nervously on the box of pierogies he’s still holding. Dee’s got his hot pockets. Stiles kind of hopes that Derek doesn’t notice them. “So uh, how have you been?”  
  
“Good,” Derek says, some of the ice melting from her eyes. Her shoulders relax as a small smile quirks the corners of her mouth. She jerks her head towards Dee, and adds, wryly, “Busy.”  
  
He laughs, proud that it only comes out slightly strangled. “I can see that. So, she’s… yours?”  
  
There’s another hint of that emotion from her, there and gone again, quick as a blink. Derek nods. “Yeah, she’s… she’s pretty great. We’ve been living in Buffalo for a couple years now with Cora.”  
  
“Buffalo.” Stiles repeats, flicking the little red straw at the end of the aerosol can. It sounds like another planet. Buffalo. Not Beacon Hills, California. Buffalo, New York. Two thousand some miles and some nine hours by plane. Half a goddamn country away. “Why Buffalo?”  
  
Derek bites her lip, shifting easily so that Dee can grab her hand. “There was a pack there that Laura and I were on good terms with a while back. They’re good about giving asylum to wayward omegas.”  
  
“Oh,” Stiles says.  
  
He wants to shout, _you had a pack! You didn’t have to be an omega_!  
  
Stiles wants to yell and scream like they used to, wants her to get right up in his face and glare like she’s trying to melt his brain with that alone. He wants to get kicked out of this grocery store for having a shouting match worse than Mr. and Mrs. Wilkinson’s eight months ago.  
  
But he can’t, because _Derek Hale has a little girl_.  
  
“Well uh,” he whispers. “It was nice seeing you.”  
  
Stiles wants to ask Derek what she’s doing back in Beacon Hills, if she’s staying or just stopping in to talk to Scott or get something out of her parents vault. Maybe she’s getting married. For all he knows, she might have an old family ring somewhere and came here with her daughter to retrieve it. But the longer Stiles looks at her, the more and more his world tilts on its axis.  
  
He steps forward and reaches down for the box of Hot Pockets still in Dee’s hand. She hands it to him.  
  
“It was nice meeting you, Dee,” he tells her, and she grins, big and bright, her cheeks dimpling adorably.  
  
“You too, Smelly Man!”  
  
He snorts and shakes his head, beginning to back away from them. He can’t bring himself to turn around just yet, still focused on Derek’s torn expression. “It’s _Stiles_.”  
  
“Nope,” she calls back, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “That’s stupid.”  
  
He smiles at her for a moment, then looks to Derek again. She’s looking right back at him, still gnawing on her lip. She looks just as gut-punched with emotion as he feels. And that’s why he needs to get out of here.  
  
He reaches the end of the aisle. They’re still standing right there. It would be so easy to march back over and ask if they want to get lunch with him. So fucking easy. But Derek Hale has a kid and is probably getting engaged to some guy from halfway across the country. In the long run, it would just prolong the pain.  
  
So he gives them both one last fleeting smile, and rounds the corner.  
  
.  
  
Stiles dreams that night. It’s not a dream that he has often. For all that it’s a good dream, it’s also a horrible one. He hates and loves it in equal turns. Sometimes the dream is a blur of skin, sweat, and gasped breaths. Other times, it’s crystal clear.  
  
He dreams in shades of Derek Hale’s skin. Snapshots of color and sound. Her fingers in his hair. His hands on her waist. Her mouth on his skin. His lips on the curve of her hip. Her thighs around his waist.  
  
Stiles dreams of a voice like liquid silk. Words muffled against his skin. Her head thrown back, mouth parted on a soundless gasp. He dreams the noises she makes when she comes, the way her toes curl in a tangle of dark sheets. The way the moonlight looks on her bare skin.  
  
He dreams a voice that isn’t his own, whispering inside his head.  
  
 _Look how she wants you_ , the voice taunts. _See how she blushes for you_?  
  
He dreams of Derek’s eyelashes fluttering against her cheeks and the way she’d smiled at him afterwards, so sweetly.  
  
 _And to think_ , the voice whispers. _You could have had her_.  
  
Stiles wakes up.  
  
.  
  
Stiles has every intention of marching over to Scott and Kira’s place the next day and demanding to know why Scott hadn’t warned him that Derek was back in town. He gets up for the day, eats a crappy breakfast of cheerios and orange juice, and showers. Methodically, he pulls his clothes on, thinking about how Dee had called him smelly the day before. Maybe it was the new fabric softener. Or maybe it was Stiles’ nasty habit of leaving his clean clothes in a heap on the floor right next to his dirty ones.  
  
He even texts Scott that he’s coming over later, mashing buttons mindlessly with one hand as he brushes his teeth.  
  
Stiles spends the day watching Netflix and mindlessly working through his homework, and only realizes that he’s putting things off when the sun starts sinking down the horizon. He gets up in a hurry, sending another rapid fire text to Scott that he’s on his way and fumbling his way into his shoes.  
  
Then the doorbell rings while he’s rummaging around on the kitchen counter for his keys.  
  
Stiles freezes, staring at the door like it’s going to eat him. Nobody comes to his apartment. Scott does sometimes, but Scott had just texted Stiles back to tell him to let himself into the house when he got there. For the most part, the pack congregates at Scott’s, and Stiles’ dad always gives him a heads up before he comes over.  
  
Always.  
  
Tentatively, Stiles reaches for the baseball bat hidden behind a nest of ridiculously patterned umbrellas. It’s had some changes over the years — runes, mountain ash sandings, the works — but it’s the same one he’s used since high school.  
  
He approaches the door, bat held aloft, and when he’s close enough, peers through the peephole.  
  
Derek Hale is standing on his doorstep, sans spawn. She’s shifting as if nervous, fingers twisting the hem of her shirt back and forth. The sweat pants are gone today, as is the huge band tee. Instead, they’ve been replaced by jeans and a wine-colored henley. Her hair isn’t quite as frizzy around the ends. He wonders if she took the time to brush it.  
  
Derek glares at him through the peephole.  
  
“Open the door, Stiles,” she hisses. “I know you’re there.”  
  
He opens the door, propping his hip up against the bat. “Derek. Where’s your Mini Me?”  
  
Derek clenches her fists at her sides. “I left her with Cora. Are you going to let me in?”  
  
“Depends,” Stiles hedges. “Are you going to murder me for knocking your kid down yesterday?”  
  
Surprised, Derek blinks. “No, why would I do that? She’s the one who ran into you.”  
  
His neighbor across the way is watching Derek’s ass. Frank is pretty harmless, but he’s a total perv. The girl Stiles had dated last year would make him walk her down to her car every night when she left, which hey, he would have done that anyways. Sheriff’s son and all. But with Derek, Stiles is more concerned that Frank might meet a messy end if she catches him staring.  
  
“Okay,” he sighs, shuffling out of the doorway to let her in.  
  
He takes his time closing and locking the door behind him. There’s a crushing feeling somewhere to the right of his navel, and it’s making him nervous. Having Derek here, in his home, is different than just running into her in the grocery store. This is him actually having Derek in the same space where he dreamt about her just four hours ago.  
  
“So,” he says, spinning around. He flashes her a huge, blatantly fake grin. “Make yourself at home. Mi casa es su casa.”  
  
Derek smirks at him, dropping down to sit on the crappy sofa Scott and Kira had gotten him as a birthday present two years ago, and kicks her feet up on the coffee table. It’s a dare, familiar ground that has his shoulders relaxing before he even realizes that they’d been tense in the first place.  
  
“Get your feet off my coffee table, Hale,” he chides, swatting at them as he drops down onto the couch next to her.  
  
“Please,” Derek snorts. “Like my boots could really damage this table any worse.”  
  
Stiles considers the table. He and Scott had literally pulled it off the streets on trash night. They’d found it on the good side of town, so it wasn’t exactly a bad table, but it was plenty beat up. Derek couldn’t hurt it much worse.  
  
“Fair,” he nods, and leans back.  
  
Stiles’ apartment isn’t the best. It’s tiny as all hell, but he doesn’t really need much space. He’s a junior in college, he’s lucky he’s got a place of his own at all. He would have thought that Derek would look out of place here, in Stiles’ little apartment with it’s collection of ramshackle old parts, but she doesn’t. She looks just as comfortable sitting on Stiles’ couch as any of the pack do.  
  
“So uh,” he says after the silence stretches a bit too uncomfortably. “Not that I’m complaining or anything, but why are you here?”  
  
Immediately, he regrets bringing it up. Whatever easy camaraderie they’d settled into over the last five minutes is gone before the words fully leave his mouth. Derek’s lips settle into a grim, thin line as she tenses, her whole body going into lockdown.  
  
“Sorry,” Stiles says, and then stops, because he has no idea how to proceed.  
  
“Don’t be,” Derek murmurs, slowly pulling her legs off of the table. “You have nothing to apologize for.”  
  
Stiles shivers, his brain providing about a dozen reasons to be sorry right now, all of them beginning and ending with the way she’d looked at him after they’d finally gotten the nogitsune out of him.  
  
He thinks about pursuing that train of thought, of finally _apologizing_ for what it did to her while it was inside him.  
  
Stiles always chickens out. He’s done it for years, every time he thinks of telling someone. He told the pack that he lost his virginity to Malia a few weeks after they started dating. No one knows how he really lost it, because Stiles still can’t fathom actually giving voice to the horrible fact that he lost his virginity to the girl of his dreams when he wasn’t even in control of his own damn body.  
  
This time is no different. He bites his tongue until it’s sore and finally just shrugs.  
  
Derek takes a deep breath. “I’m here because I wanted to see how you’ve been.”  
  
“I’m good,” he admits, caught off guard. “Juggling the pack and schoolwork is a bitch sometimes, but yeah. I’ve been pretty good. You?”  
  
Her lips quirk upwards. “I have a daughter who’s nearly four. How do you think I am?”  
  
“Please.” Stiles snorts before he can stop himself. “Your daughter is a total sweetheart. No way she’s giving you that hard of a time.”  
  
The little half-smile pulling at the edges of Derek’s lips is quickly becoming a real one. “Most of the time,” she agrees with a little laugh. “But she’s got a mean streak when you least expect it.”  
  
“No way,” Stiles breathes.  
  
“Way.” Derek pauses, eying the old clock on his mantle. “She doesn’t show it often, but she’s a mischievous little thing. Keeps me and Cora on our toes.”  
  
Something occurs to Stiles. “Was she the reason you left?”  
  
Derek goes still again. Stiles listens to her breathe in shakily and thinks he might have stumbled onto a sensitive subject again. He feels a little bad about it, because he’s probably wrong. Just because she has a three year old daughter doesn’t mean that she got pregnant while she was in Beacon Hills. She’d left before, what was to say that she couldn’t have just done it again, because she felt like it? Beacon Hills wasn’t a good place to be a Hale.  
  
The clock on the mantle ticks away. Derek whispers, “Yes.”  
  
It makes sense. Beacon Hills was practically a hellmouth. It wouldn’t be the best place to raise a baby, not three years ago, when every supernatural creature within a hundred mile radius had been making a grab for the nemeton.  
  
“Probably a good thing,” he sighs. At her questioning look, he grimaces and elaborates. “Things weren’t really good for awhile there. A couple months after you left we had some assassins gunning for us. It wasn’t pretty.”  
  
He doesn’t mention that Peter had been behind that, or that her uncle was currently residing on a floor in Eichen House that supposedly didn’t exist. Derek doesn’t need the reminder.  
  
“Assassins?”  
  
Stiles shrugs. “Yeah. Some nutjob created a deadpool of supernatural creatures and offered people money for their heads.” He hesitates for a moment, then adds, “Scott was at the top of the list.”  
  
“Hmm. In retrospect, maybe having a child wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened.”  
  
He glances at her sharply, surprised. “You think Dee’s a bad thing?”  
  
“No,” Derek sighs. “God, no, Dee’s the best thing that’s happened to me in _years_. I just—”  
  
“Didn’t want a kid at the time?”  
  
Derek slumps backwards, head thumping against the back of the couch. “Exactly. Three years ago, would you have looked at me and thought, ‘hey, that’s mom material right there, great choice for raising a child!’”  
  
Stiles bites his lip and doesn’t say anything.  
  
Derek snorts. “That’s what I thought.”  
  
He wants to ask who the father is. It’s right on the tip of his tongue. Who was it, Stiles wants to ask, because it must have been just after—  
  
Well. It must have been _just after_.  
  
There’s a wariness in Derek’s eyes though, as if she’s already waiting — dreading — for him to ask. So he bites his tongue and doesn’t say anything, even though he’s aching to. They make small talk for another fifteen minutes, and it just gets more and more awkward, until finally Derek grimaces and gets to her feet.  
  
“I should go,” she mutters, stretching the kinks out of her neck. “Cora’s supposed to be overseeing the movers right now, so she’s probably not very happy with me.”  
  
Stiles blinks up at her, distracted momentarily by the way the setting sun coming through his window warms her cheekbones. “Movers?”  
  
“Yeah, we hired a contractor about a year ago. There’s was a construction team for the rebuilding, but the house is done now, so all that’s left is the moving bit.”  
  
“The house?” Stiles whispers blankly. His mouth is dry.  
  
Derek glances at him from under thick lashes, her eyes shadowed and dark. She wets her lips, as if she might be nervous. “Yeah. Scott said… a while back he called and said that if I ever wanted to come back, I would be welcome here. I haven’t spoken with him since we got into town, but… is that not true anymore?”  
  
Stiles is going to kill Scott.

“No,” he rushes to say. “I mean, shit. Yes. It’s Scott, dude. He isn’t gonna care if you move back here.”  
  
He’s having trouble working his head around the fact that this means Derek is here to stay. There are going to be three Hales in Beacon Hills again. This means that there is no hotshot fiance back in New York, no quest to obtain an old family ring. Derek’s _here to stay_ , and that’s giving him heart palpitations.  
  
“Okay,” she says, giving him an odd look. Slowly, she starts moving toward the door, so Stiles gets up to follow her.  
  
He’s reluctant to let her leave, afraid that if he lets her walk away again, she’s going to be gone for good, house or no house.  
  
Derek hesitates at the door, glancing back when Stiles reaches over to pull the door open for her.  
  
“You should bring Dee over tomorrow,” he blurts out. “We can get lunch or something. Watch a movie, go to Chuck-E-Cheese, I don’t know. If the kid’s really been dealing with moving for the last few days, she’d probably appreciate a break from all that. Cora can even come if she wants—”  
  
He cuts himself off with a wince. Fuck.  
  
Derek’s eyebrows seem to be attempting lift off, but at least she looks amused. She leans against the doorframe, her head inches from an awful shot of him, Scott, and Lydia on a rollercoaster.  
  
“One of us have to be at the house to supervise the movers,” she says, after a pause. “But I’ll see if she’s up for filling in again.”  
  
“Good,” Stiles laughs. “That’s great. I’ll just… see you tomorrow, I guess.”  
  
Derek keeps looking at him. She doesn’t reach for the door.  
  
“Tomorrow,” she breathes, nodding. Still, she doesn’t move, one hand tucked up against her side, the other pressed to her heart.  
  
“Yeah, tomorrow,” he repeats, feeling like his heart is about to beat out of his chest. God, she can probably hear that. She probably thinks that something is wrong with him. He reaches towards her, going for a friendly clap to the shoulder. Anything to make this whole ordeal less awkward.  
  
The second his hand touches her shoulder though, Derek shivers, taking a short, sharp breath. He actually _watches_ her eyes dilate.  
  
They both freeze.  
  
 _Well shit_ , he thinks, staring at her with wide eyes. _That’s unexpected_.  
  
Stiles’ hand is still on her shoulder. He can feel the press of her bra strap against his thumb.  
  
Slowly, as if in a trance, Stiles moves his hand up her shoulder in a slow caress, until he reaches the curve of her neck. He cups it in his palm, fingers splayed over cheek and neck and the curve of her jaw. Fascinated, Stiles watches as she tilts her head to make room for him.  
  
He can feel her pulse pounding away against his fingertips, intimate as a kiss.  
  
Stiles’ eyes go to her lips and finds them parted, her lower lip wet, as if she licked them while he wasn’t looking. She’s watching him, gauging his reaction, probably wondering what he’s going to do now.  
  
Stiles lets go of the door, raising his other hand so it’s mirroring the first. Gently, he strokes a thumb across her lips. A hot thrill goes down his spine when Derek presses the softest of kisses to the tip of it, her eyelashes fluttering as she looks back at him.  
  
In a shaky voice, he asks, “Can I…?”  
  
Derek’s throat works against his fingers as she swallows. When she speaks, her voice is just as raspy and unsteady as his. “Yes.”  
  
He keeps his eyes on hers as he leans forward, her breath against his mouth, her pulse thundering through his bones. This feels like a crescendo to a movement that he didn’t realize they were still playing.  
  
When Stiles kisses her, Derek lets out a small gasp, breath hitching in her throat. A moment passes, charged with the idea of it, that this is his lips on hers, finally. And then she lets out another noise, louder, and pulls him close, wrapping her arms around his neck and reeling him in, kissing back in earnest.  
  
Stiles doesn’t know how his hands end up under her thighs, hoisting her up so she can wrap her legs around his waist, back pressed to the door frame behind her as her ankles lock against the small of his back. He just knows that suddenly they’re pressed as close as they can get, her hands roving all over his body.  
  
Everywhere Derek touches positively sings with energy, little sparks trailing up Stiles’ chest as her hands snake under his shirt. She growls when he hitches her higher up the wall, her thighs clenching around his hips so tight that he’ll probably have bruises in the morning. A thought occurs to him and he can’t help himself — he laughs, pressing giddy, breathless kisses up the side of her neck.  
  
“What?” Derek gasps. She sounds distracted.  
  
Stiles kisses her hard, still chuckling against her mouth. “Nothing,” he answers. “Just— pretty sure we’re fulfilling a high school fantasy of mine right now, what with the walls and the growling and such.”  
  
Derek snorts, reaching a hand between them and fumbling with his zipper until she gets it undone. Stiles jolts when her hand wraps around his cock, drawing it out and giving it a few lazy pumps. She grins at him, sharp and wolfish, and purrs, “You just like getting manhandled.”  
  
He grins back, just as sharply, and gives her ass a rough squeeze. “Hey, I’m not the one getting manhandled right now.”  
  
Derek laughs, head thrown back to thump against the wall. She eyes him appreciatively, lips quirked tellingly. “Well then, we’ll just have to fix that, won’t we?”  
  
Stiles groans, disappointed, when she wriggles out of his arms entirely, her legs slowly unwinding from around his waist. Derek’s still grinning at him though, pressed close as she begins to lead him past the couch and into the hallway. She doesn’t even have to ask where his bedroom is, his apartment is that small, leading him there with her fingers hooked through his belt hoops. He goes willingly, laughing whenever she gets distracted and kisses him.  
  
Before he knows it, the backs of his legs are bumping up against the edge of his bed, and he’s falling, dick flopping lamely between his thighs. Stiles takes the time to scoot out of them, then takes off his shirt for good measure.  
  
Derek’s jeans are already halfway down her thighs when he refocuses, her underwear apparently having gone done with them. He swallows heavily.  
  
She’s smiling at him. It’s a strange, tentative thing compared to her full-bodied grins and sharp-edged smirks. Stiles would have never pegged her as shy, nervous, or self-conscious, but he’s beginning to realize that maybe there’s more to Derek than meets the eye. She’s got layers, like an onion.  
  
She kisses him quickly, her skin flushed and her hair in disarray as she finishes kicking off the jeans and goes for her shirt. That goes easily enough too, as does the bra beneath it.  
  
And then he’s got Derek Hale standing in his room, stark naked.  
  
“God, you’re beautiful,” he breathes as she slides into his lap. His hands go to frame her hips and she laughs, nose crinkling. She wears delight well, he thinks, leaning in to kiss the base of her throat.  
  
“Mm,” Derek hums, hand finding his among the sheets. She squeezes it once.  
  
Derek finds his dick with her free hand, and Stiles has maybe a second to realize what she’s doing as she guides it between her legs, rubbing the head happily against her clit before smoothly sinking down.  
  
Stiles muffles a gasp against the swell of her shoulder, digging his teeth in hard enough to leave indents as she settles against him, thighs trembling. Slowly, as if she’s waiting for him to pull away, Derek wraps both of her arms around his shoulders and buries her face in his neck, inhaling deeply. She’s making quiet noises into his skin, not even moving yet, just settling in around him, clenching around him with every breath.  
  
He lets her have the moment, relishing in the intimacy of it. He’s slept with guys and girls, people he’s been in relationships with and one night stands. He’s fucked people in alleys, cars, hot tubs, their bed, his bed, hotel rooms... and nothing has ever felt half as good as just sitting here with her in his lap, completely still.  
  
“I thought about this,” she confesses quietly, lips moving enticingly against the skin of his neck. “I used to spend so much time thinking about having you like this.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
Derek shudders, mouth caught open as she tentatively rocks down onto him.  
  
“Yeah,” she breathes. “All the time. I think it actually started because I was thinking of ways to shut you up, but then you just— you were always there, and I—”  
  
She breaks off with another moan, rolling her hips with more conviction.  
  
“I thought about you too,” he admits. It’s not much of a secret. Sure, Stiles was a sixteen year old kid when they first met and he was bound to have some hormone explosions over a hot werewolf who ran around in a sports bra half the time, but she was Derek. After a while, she wasn’t just another chick to think about while his hand was around his dick. She was the only one that really mattered.  
  
Derek’s breath catches on a sob as she lifts herself up, until just the head of his dick is still caught inside her, and then she’s sinking back down, glacially slow, so he can feel every. dragging. _inch_.  
  
Stiles swirls his thumb around her belly button, watching his dick vanish inside her. She’s so wet, smears of it across his belly, dripping between his legs. Her thighs feel like smooth silk against his palms; he takes great pleasure in sliding his hands up and down her legs, loving the way that she twitches in appreciation.  
  
“Wanted this,” she gasps at one point, when she’s so lost in the moment that her eyes have gone wild and wolf blue around the edges. “Wanted you.”  
  
“Yeah,” Stiles whispers, hands tightening into fists as she starts fucking down onto him in earnest, her face damp with sweat. She’s close. He can tell. Sure, he has vaguely shaped memories of what she’d looked like when she was about to come, but none of that even matters. He can tell by the way her breathing has gone choppy, how tight she’s gone around him. He can feel it, and it makes him restless, thrusting up to meet her. “You— it’s always been you. I— _Derek_.”  
  
He’s not actually sure which of them comes first. Derek rides him through it, shuddering as aftershocks ripple down her body, muscles clenching hard. Stiles catches her mouth with his, drawing her into a kiss so intense that he can feel it in his fucking toes.  
  
She slumps, breaking the kiss with a happy sigh, and Stiles settles back onto the bed, his arms coming up to wrap around her torso.  
  
It’s… comfortable. Amazing really, everything he should have had four years ago. They lay there in the afterglow, him stroking his fingers through her short hair. Derek practically vibrates contentment, her breathing slowly returning to normal as she comes down from her high.  
  
Stiles doesn’t mean to fall asleep. It’s a cliche that he’s never had a problem with before, but with Derek’s hands tracing idle patterns on his skin, it’s easy to succumb to the temptation of it. The last thought he has that night is that this feels right, and now that he has her back, he doesn’t ever want to let her go again.  
  
.  
  
It’s probably the sun that ends up waking him the next day, but it might just as well be the feel of a warm body next to him, soft hands carding through his hair. He shifts sleepily, smacking his lips as he turns into Derek’s touch. The sleepy smile that pulls at his lips is probably embarrassing, but that’s okay, because Derek is still here, right next to him.  
  
“I called Cora,” she whispers, her breath upsetting the short hairs at his temple.  
  
Stiles smiles wider and presses a kiss to her cheek without opening his eyes. “Was she pissed?”  
  
Derek snorts. “She wouldn’t be Cora if she wasn’t.”  
  
He hums, pressing further into her warmth. “Was Dee okay?”  
  
There’s a moment of silence before Derek sighs and says, “Dee’s a good girl. She’s used to either me or Cora staying out for a night or two. We did jobs for the pack in New York sometimes, so as long as Cora’s with her, she doesn’t worry too much if I’m not back for bedtime.”  
  
“That’s good,” he murmurs. “Means we have time for breakfast.”  
  
They both doze off and on for another half an hour, before the slowly rising sun reaches uncomfortable levels of blinding. Stiles yawns, blinking his eyes open blearily. Derek’s watching him, a serious look on her narrow face.  
  
“What’s that look for?” he asks.  
  
“Her name is Claudia.”  
  
Stiles blinks. “What?”  
  
Derek is slowly sitting up, not bothering to clutch the sheets to her chest. She looks calm, calmer than she has since Stiles first saw her in that grocery store yesterday, but there’s something off about her eyes.  
  
“Dee,” Derek explains, gesturing a little with one hand. “Her name is Claudia.”  
  
It doesn’t click immediately. Stiles has never been a morning person, and probably never will be, so it takes a couple moments of blank staring before he really _gets it_.  
  
Claudia.  
  
Derek’s _three year old_ daughter.  
  
The daughter that Derek had after she left Beacon Hills in the wake of the nogitsune shitshow. The daughter that she left Beacon Hills to have, not even two months after a monster with Stiles’ face _fucked_ her.  
  
Derek named her child after Stiles’ dead mother.  
  
 _Claudia_.  
  
Derek named _their_ child after Stiles’ mother.  
  
“Oh,” he breathes. And then, “Wow.”  
  
Derek lets out a quick stuttering breath that seems to be half relief and half nerves. “I was going to tell you. I just—”  
  
“Yeah,” Stiles says quickly. Reeling doesn’t even begin to cover what he’s feeling right now, but he… gets it. He would have been seventeen years old when Derek found out she was pregnant. Werewolves and hunters are one thing, but a _child_? Could Stiles have even processed that back then? Something that wasn’t the next big bad but just as hugely life-altering?  
  
Privately, he wants to think that he could have handled it. That he would have nutted up and done what was best for Derek and the baby, but god. Getting out of this town was best for Derek and the baby. Stiles doesn’t even want to think about what could have happened if the kid was around for the deadpool. Would she have been on it? What would an infant have been worth, he wonders. He feels sick.  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
“No,” Stiles tells her, turning to draw her into his arms. “Don’t be. I—”  
  
He swallows, the words catching in his throat. There’s a part of him that’s angry, that wishes she’d told him instead of _leaving_. Stiles will never get those years back. He’ll never know what it would have been like to wake up at two in the morning to a crying baby or cheer for her first word to be daddy. He won’t get that, and that isn’t fair.  
  
This entire situation isn’t fair. He’s spent the last four years thinking that Derek hates him for what he did to her. What his body did to her. And he’s willing to bet that she spent that time thinking the same thing about him. She did what she had to though. She got out, protected their child, and even if a part of him will always wonder what if, he can’t fault her for that.  
  
 It hurts to unstick his throat. “I get it,” he finishes, petting her hair. “You did what you had to.”  
  
“But—”  
  
“We have _a lot_ to work through,” he sighs, smiling down at her. Her eyes are wide. Disbelieving. And maybe a little bit hopeful. “A lot to talk about. But if it’s all the same to you, I’d kind of like to take you up on that lunch date with our daughter now.”  
  
Derek chuckles, shaking her head. She’s looking at him like she’s never seen him before. “At Chuck-E-Cheese?”  
  
Stiles considers it; he nods. “Yeah, if that’s still a thing. A picnic in the park would work too. I have it on good authority that blackberry jelly and lucky charm sandwiches are the bees knees.”  
  
Derek groans, her head coming back to thunk against Stiles’ collarbone. “I knew she got her tastebuds from you.”  
  
“C’mon, go call Cora,” he tells her, swatting her on the butt. He hides a smile in her hair when she yelps. “Between this and the conversation I’m going to have to have with my father, this is going to be a long day.”  
  
Derek pauses on the threshold of the bedroom. She’s still gloriously naked, holding the cell phone she’d fished out of her jeans close to her chest.  
  
“Do you think we’ll be okay?” she asks, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

Stiles thinks about it.  
  
When he was little, his mom would drag him to the theater every time Disney released a new movie. Stiles grew up on fairy tales, the good and the bad. He grew up with Simba and Aladdin. Mulan and Pocahontas. Belle and Tarzan. Every single one of those movies had a single thing in common.  
  
“Ohana means family,” he says slowly. “Family means that no one gets left behind or forgotten.”  
  
Most of the time, Derek’s poker face is impressive. This time though, there’s a softness lurking around her eyes that gives her away. Briefly, Stiles wonders if that was the last movie she watched with her mom too.  
  
She bites her lip, and asks, “Even if it’s little and broken?”  
  
Stiles smiles at her. “Yeah. Still good.” 


End file.
